So for those who do not know I had decided to take some water, plants and critters from the lake here to see if they would live in an aquarium. And, yes, yes they do. I now have them in a 20 gallon after having them in a big bin to get them slowly used to aquarium water, then conditioned tap water.

What I found (pictures not included);

red ticks, I think.
black ringed red worms - the size of day old and week old fry.
white larvae with a black head
water beetles
water spiders
a few others

PICTURED HERE
a leech

a predator! xD He uses hollowed out wood as his hiding spot/shell. I found him when I saw a hunk of water logged wood scuttle off I picked him up, and felt the wood "pulsing" with movement. A little black ringed worm spiralled out, and then a head peeked out! He has six legs, used to snatch prey who unexpectedly land or swim by the piece of wood. I thought it was just a bug who decided to be smart, but I also found another one (dead). He is a golden light brown color, with black speckling on his head! He blends into the wood... the other end of the wood he uses xD food in ONE hole and OUT the other hahaha

The other critter shown, has three "tails" that seem "feathered", he has six legs, antennas... um.... there's many of them o_o Cool looking! Babies from 3 week old betta fry size, to adults about an inch. Green and light brown are their colors.

I think the critter with the feathered tail & 6 legs is a damselfly nymph? They will eventually molt into something that looks kinda like a dragonfly (wings & all!). I how you're prepared for creatures flying off on you. Posted via Mobile Device

that would explain a dried specimen that was on the air tube they do look similar for body, for a dragonfly. I do have a hood on, but if they start to "stretch their wings" I'll catch and release

I wonder what the hollow wood buggy is called? I looked over the dead one, and the back end (about 2/3 his body!) has no legs, and just resembles a larvae/worm/maggot's body, and his 6 legs are close to his head (no doubt for snatching snacks!) he's really interesting. And weird to see a piece of wood scuttle off o_o

Sena, this is so fun! Daughter and I did this when she was younger.. we scooped a bucket of mud and water from a local pond, tipped it in a big glass container and let it settle.. so many animals, including tadpoles (we had the frogs as pets for years..). We kept them for a long time, and our family used to sit around the tank and watch the critters instead of TV, lol.

The critter with the wood is probably a caddis fly larvae. The damsel fly larvae will make snacks out of anything that moves, lol. We lost a lot of tadpoles to those and baby dragon flies and water beetle larvae (boy are those ugly/interesting) before I thought to check the water weeds for predators. A few less tadpoles every day..

Oh I know, it's so fun!! I mean... seeing creatures that probably most of the people here have never seen nor heard of, plus seeing them interact with each other. The shrimp are doing pretty well, and some of the water beetles are hiding out lol

Yuck, I would not touch bugs not knowing what they are! :p
I agree with caddisfly larvae, each species makes up a shell out of different things, sand, plant matter.. You can try searching for what species uses wood for it's "shell".Posted via Mobile Device